I started trying to write an intimate diary hand written in my pretty journal that I got as a present. I love it so much but I find it really heavy and the act of writing is hard work! I don’t know if its the lack of practise that my ageing hand gets physically tiered really quickly or the fact that my thoughts come so fast that my hand is constantly playing catch up! ( I was also told whilst having a dyslexic test that writing speed, and achynejss are related to this?! which is something to look into maybe!)
Its weird because I used to type with only two fingers which was very slow but now I can fly with the keys much better than writing!So I’ve lost one art form of capturing the word but developed another. That felt worthy of a mention. I do find that when I type I instantly imagine that I am talking to someone, so I am writing with a sense of the ‘other’ as present. The sense of improvising is slightly tweaked as I am being watched by my audience, changing my perspective of how I come across! I have been thinking of theses ideas today of being authentic. Can we truly be authentic? The context for this question is and was this morning in the kitchen when I decided it would be a great idea to do a video recording of me dancing in the kitchen. After attempting my first recording of this which mainly involved my son Jonah interrupting me the whole time and no dance being created at all: to use time lapse instead. I thought that using time lapse would be a good idea as a way to record my daily routine in the domestic space of my kitchen. I wondered if I could make the mundane tasks magical. I wondered if I could explore different domestic objects in the kitchen and play with them as a way to generate interesting movements. This may involve Jonah my son but only if it happens naturally. So i wasn’t going to set anything up just explore and see what came organically. Argh but as soon as I pressed Record I couldn’t stop knowing that I was being watched. I did go about my daily things but in awareness. In improvisation there is an duality between being lost in the moment but with awareness, or the art of meditation to be immersed in the moment, peaceful but with awareness as a silent witness that observes rather than judges. is it possible to capture authentic moments? So I pressed record and started dancing with a lemon! Like I would do that normally! Not authentic but very amusing to watch! I danced like no girl has danced with a lemon before! I had a great time with it. It became my friend for those few minutes as I lifted her high in the air, spun her around, sniffed her, snuggled with her under my chin. After my very zesty lemon dance I bumbled around the kitchen as I would normally as Jonah engaged himself with a torch and started to de construct it like a scientist trying to figure out how it works. My next object I naturally came to was a muslin cloth that I had just rinsed after using it as a shift for some almond milk I just made! yah I KNOW I’m an amazing mum right, check out my milk! I really AM a milk maid! Not just my own! I never knew how beautiful a spinning wet muslin cloth could look! I know this sounds bizarre or like I have just watched the clip in American Beauty where he films a bag ‘dancing’ in the wind and gone and got inspired! The shapes that I whipped up, as I spun it around and it danced before my very eyes, changing shape. I managed to make it spin around like pizza dough. i would encourage anyone to have a go. Wet a muslin cloth ring it out so its damp and get one end and spin. Jonah joined me for this interaction and loved dodging around the cloth, weaving in-between. After my muslin madness I moved onto a dustpan and long handled broom/brush. A song came on the radio which perfectly reflected this new partner dance I started to create. I felt like ginger rogers as I danced closely with the broom handle. I felt carefree and playful. So why. Am I. Writing this all down? I need someway to reflect back on this later. I wanted to share my private world and play with it a little, add some extra excitement, use it as a starting point for something else, feel alive and free in my body that often feels limited by my domestic restrictions of being a mother, having limited access to play in a studio. Why not turn my domestic environment into my studio? I find real spaces so much more inspiring to create something from. The other reason why I have written this is because the time lapse video looks SHIT! and I don’t have a recording to look back at the dances I did and felt VERY SAD once Id discovered this! I tried to console myself by saying its the process of play that is important not the product. So this is my new process/product so I have captured this for myself and anyone who may find it slightly amusing/inspiring and for those who love dancing in kitchen spaces the best x Vimeo Link: First Attempt to capture a myself improvising in the kitchen: Magically Mundane Moments of Motherhood Decision to use Time lapse to record playing with objects Time Lapse Video- Playing with domestic Objects
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Kayla St Claire & Jonah Ray Bainger
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